


Too Close

by appalachian_fireflies



Series: Sam POV [1]
Category: Captain America (Movies)
Genre: And the Russos spake “there will be Steve/Sam/Bucky, Dissociation, HYDRA Trash Party, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Multi, Past Rape/Non-con, Rape Recovery, Suicide mention, and I did answer, fucked up trauma reactions, no eroticized rape, sam is the cinnamon roll
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-12-01
Updated: 2015-12-01
Packaged: 2018-05-04 07:09:56
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,926
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5325173
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/appalachian_fireflies/pseuds/appalachian_fireflies
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Bucky learns about video WS#3, which shows him being raped while he was under HYDRA's control. </p><p>He can handle it just fine.  Sam can't.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Too Close

“Hey,” Sam greets the shadow hovering in the door. He rolls back the bed covers, and the shadow advances, silent bare feet coming to a halt at the side of the bed. The lamp on the nightstand flicks on, and Bucky is taking off the hoodie he wears around the apartment, revealing a soft, long-sleeve shirt underneath. He gets into the bed with a whisper of sheets, shuffles away from the edge and toward the center. 

The bed had been a gift of Pepper’s after a night spent watching the three of them shuffle closer and closer on the couch. It’s so big it has to be custom, and Sam thinks it’s the best present he’s ever gotten; a California King was big enough for Sam and Steve, but not for a supersoldier Samwich. 

Sam’s been up since before the crack of dawn, and he knows that going to sleep at 7pm is an old man move, but he’s only human. The clock on the nightstand reads 8:15pm; Bucky must have just gotten in from wherever he’s been today. He’s come and gone since the first time he showed up on Sam and Steve’s doorstep, and they don’t ask, just smile when he’s back. They know he’s not hurting anyone, so it doesn’t really matter. 

“Come here, gorgeous,” Sam says, and Bucky shuffles closer, face hidden by a curtain of hair. Sam sifts his fingers through the strands (his white boys have so many of them, and some supernatural force always seems to make sure at least one strand of hair ends up in the crack of his ass). When he pushes the hair back over Bucky's ear and his hooded eyes appear, Sam smiles wide and leans forward to kiss him hello. 

Bucky kisses like a dream, the bow of his lips constantly red like he’s just bitten them, never too demanding, but not quite yielding like Steve. Sam’s gotten hard just watching Bucky kiss Steve, he’s not ashamed to admit. 

Sam runs his hands down over Bucky’s muscled shoulders with a sigh, loving his soft skin, the buttery lines of healed scar tissue. He moves to rub at Bucky’s neck, casual, familiar, ease the ache the arm causes on the left side, keep the tension headache from creeping up through his temples. 

Instead of relaxing into it, Bucky shifts away, then pulls Sam closer until their bodies are flush. He moves to kiss him again, and Sam can’t stop the moan when he deepens the kiss. Bucky lightly scrapes his fingernails down Sam’s spine, and he feels the meticulously rounded edges pressing into his skin; they know it’s a bad morning when Bucky isn’t searching for stray hairs on his jaw to nip off with his razor. Grooming seems to be his go-to for comforting himself. He’s also started to hoard nail polishes in one of his drawers, hasn’t worn them yet, and they don’t ask. They just make sure he eats and sleeps as much as he can, and hug him when his eyes ask. 

Bucky’s pressed close up against Sam’s front, and now he’s sliding a thigh between Sam’s legs, pressing. They’ve never gone this far, and Sam’s surprised; he thought it’d be with Steve. But, then again, he’s constantly surprised with how Bucky has let him in, like he’s neutral ground. Sam doesn’t have the history Steve has with Bucky, has no precedent for Bucky to live up to, whether Steve sees it that way or not. 

Sam gasps when Bucky nips his lip gently, and feels Bucky’s hand move between his legs; the flesh one, because Bucky won’t even look at himself in the mirror unless he’s wearing long sleeves. Bucky cups him, and Sam’s starting to get hard, but he doesn’t think Bucky is. 

He’s not really sure what the right thing to do here is, but he feels uncertain enough to want to stop. He doesn’t know what’s going on in Bucky’s head tonight that he came in like this. Sam’s not sure Bucky’s in a place where he can even give consent.

“Wait up,” he says gently, placing a palm over Bucky’s hand. Bucky pulls back quickly, tilts his head, puzzled. 

Sam takes Bucky’s hand, strokes his thumb over the sensitive skin of his palm. “You sure you want this?”

Bucky examines Sam with a flicker of his eyes, and Sam knows whatever Bucky sees in his expression isn’t good. Bucky sits up, looks away, then looks back at Sam again, longer this time, searching for something. Every muscle in Bucky’s body goes rigid, and Sam has to drop his gaze for a moment before looking back up into the intensity of that stare. 

“You know,” Bucky says, flat, completely certain. “How?”

Sam looks away again. He thought they’d have more time; but he can never forget for long how intelligent, how instinctively perceptive Bucky is. He can’t feign ignorance and hope to pull it off, and he doesn’t want to; there’s no place for it here. 

“There’s a video,” Sam says. “It leaked with HYDRA’s files.” He watches Bucky’s mind shutter closed; his eyes are beautifully expressive, even when they’re this cold. 

“I haven’t seen it,” Bucky replies. “Why.” 

“We’ve been trying our best to scrub it,” Sam admits, “but it keeps popping up. It’ll never be gone forever, but we can make it harder to find.” 

Bucky nods, like this makes sense. “Show me,” he orders, and Sam freezes. He can’t deny him it; they're his own files, and he has the right to them, no matter what they show. But he’d do anything to keep it from him, if he could convince himself it was the right thing to do. 

Sam sits up and drags over his laptop from where he left it perched on the nightstand. “JARVIS,” he says, a little louder than his normal speaking tone, “can you please retrieve video WS#3 for me, then destroy it on this computer when it’s finished playing?”

“Of course, sir,” JARVIS says smoothly, and then it’s there on his desktop. He sits the laptop on the bed. 

“There are three other videos,” Sam tells him, “of- you, being tortured. But no more like this.” He sighs. “It might be better to not watch it,” Sam cautions, “and try to forget, as much as you can.” 

Bucky laughs, leans forward to run his finger over the track pad. “These memories are always very clear.”

“You can call your therapist, have her here with you for support,” Sam offers, already knowing Bucky’s going to say no. 

Bucky shakes his head. “That would be…worse. I’m fine. It’s not new,” he says, as gentle as he can be when he’s shut down like this. “I just, need to know. I need to see it.” Bucky clicks on the file, opens the window. 

It starts off blurry, and you can hear the panting, the wet squelching noises. Then there’s a crackle of static, an animal noise of pain, and the video goes sharp, defined. 

The winter soldier is chained to a pipe in the wall, eyes wild, hair matted and stringy with grease, his body covered in cuts and burns. He snaps his teeth, and looks as far from human as a person can get. 

“Order through pain,” Bucky comments, propping his chin on one hand. 

There’s someone in him already, some kind of strap on, and he’s got jizz on his legs, in his hair, and a wet patch on the floor that could be his own urine, or just as plausibly someone else’s. The man on him pulls out, and takes off the strap-on. The winter soldier’s legs twitch. There’s blood. 

Bucky’s looking at the man’s hands. “Oh, right. He liked that,” he comments, tapping the keyboard to turn up the brightness. 

Sam feels his stomach roll dangerously. Now there’s someone going for his mouth, and the Winter Soldier gags, gags again. Sam’s hands shake. He’s never seen the whole thing, but he’s seen enough. 

Steve has watched the entire video, more than once. He’s sat in front of the screen grimly, fingernails clenched deep into his palms and eyes firmly open, like if he can suffer with Bucky enough times then time will reverse, and Bucky won’t be alone on the screen. 

Bucky laughs at a guy who slaps the winter soldier with a stun baton, watches the soldier’s body seize and his mouth open in a silent scream. 

“I disappeared in New York for a whole month, botched a mission, tried to run,” he narrates. “Killed two of them that caught up with me. Yeah, that was it. I remember now.” He shakes his feet where they’re up in the air, his knees on the bed, chin resting on both his palms now. “Order through pain,” he says dispassionately, watching tears of agony slip from the soldier’s eyes. “Order through pain.” 

Sam watches the soldier's tears fall, feels the words stick in his throat, can’t find his breath. Bucky’s eyes look up at the man holding the video camera, and Sam gets a noise through his throat. Because that’s it, that’s why he can’t do this anymore. That’s Bucky, on the screen, that’s his body they’re raping, and his tears, his eyes begging to understand. The first time he found the video, he was horrified, but it was part of the myriad horrors surrounding the Winter Soldier, and he could step back, disengage. 

But now it’s Bucky, who’s quiet and gentle when he’s left alone, who Sam thinks can even be sweet when he’s given the chance. 

He looks at Bucky’s face, the light of the screen flickering on his empty expression that could be his bored face when he’s humoring Steve by watching one of his history shows with him. Sam thinks he’s going to throw up. 

“Please,” Sam chokes out, and Bucky looks up sharply, snapping out of it. “Honey, please, please stop. I can’t.” 

Bucky stops the video immediately, shuts the screen. Sam looks at him, wrecked, reaches a hand toward him. 

Bucky jerks away like Sam’s expression burned him, gets off the bed and onto his feet, pauses there for a second. He won’t look Sam in the eye. 

“I need to take a walk,” Bucky says, pulling his hoodie back on and zipping it up. “I need- out.” 

Sam nods. Normally, he wouldn’t say anything. He can’t stop himself from asking, though, this time. 

“Can you promise me,” Sam says, and Bucky looks at a point above his head, “that you won’t kill yourself.” 

Bucky pauses, nods. “Yes. I won’t do that. I’ll be back.” He looks at the door. “I don’t know when.” 

“Thank you,” Sam says, and they both know it’s for answering the question honestly, whatever that answer might be. 

Bucky gives him a nod, then leaves, booted feet going out the front door a few minutes later. 

Sam doesn’t think he’s going to be able to sleep after all. It reminds him of the first few weeks after Bucky came to them, when he sat in silence at his therapy sessions and woke up screaming most nights. 

After that, Sam had learned how to keep his boundaries clearer, gotten the sleep he needed, kept himself healthy to support the person he loved and the person he was coming to care deeply for. But there were no boundaries here, with what he’d just seen. He was too close to this. He was too close. 

He scrubbed down the counter with bleach, washed his hands twice, mopped the floor. He was drinking from the orange juice carton when he heard a key turn in the door, and Steve poked his big blond head in and fit his ridiculous shoulders through. 

Steve squinted at Sam when he put down the carton, studied him. 

“I’ve told you, you don’t got anything to feel guilty for when I catch you doing that,” Steve shrugs, setting down his keys. “I can’t catch your colds. It’s Buck you’ll have to answer to.” 

Sam swallows wrong, coughs, then suddenly starts sobbing, chokes when he feels the acid of the orange juice trying to come up. He doesn’t know if it’s Bucky’s name that he wasn’t prepared for, or the fact that Steve’s here now, or both, but he can’t seem to stop. There’s so much guilt he feels like he’s drowning in it. 

Steve looks alarmed as hell, drops everything to swoop in and cradle Sam’s face in his hands. “Hey, hey,” he says, pats down Sam’s shoulders. “Are you ok? Did someone get hurt? I thought your sister was out of the hospital?” 

Sam just shakes his head, tries to talk and just manages to gasp in a breath. Steve wraps his arms around him, and Sam goes gratefully, trying to get his breathing under control. 

“I couldn’t handle it,” he chokes out. 

“What’s that?” Steve asks, still confused. 

“WS#3,” Sam says, and feels Steve’s spine stiffen. “It’s _Bucky_ ,” he says nonsensically, voice breaking, “it’s _Bucky_.”

“Shh,” Steve says, running a broad palm over his neck, “shh, I know. I know.” 

And of course he does; it was always Bucky to him. Sam didn’t realize how much he didn’t understand, until now. He doubts he really ever can, like Steve does. 

“I made him stop it,” Sam admits, ashamed. “I couldn’t even be there for him enough to watch the damn video with him.” He laughs. “I’m too close.” 

Steve is quiet for a minute, just keeps his palm in a slow circle between Sam’s shoulder blades. “I think you did exactly the right thing,” Steve says, and pulls back. He gets two glasses of water, rubs a hand over his eyes. He walks over to the couch, and waves a hand for Sam to follow. 

Steve makes him drink the water slowly; he still remembers years of nausea, and what he did to avoid stripping the enamel from his teeth with too much stomach acid. Then he pulls Sam against him, breathes with him for a while. 

“I love you,” Steve says after a while. “I love how much you care. I know how invested you let yourself get. I know how hard you try.” 

Sam sighs. “I lost one, to this,” he admits, and it’s like the stark, empty white of killing frost spreading through his chest. “I did everything I could. He could never get past it.” He breathes in wetly. “.45 to the head, pulled his truck down to the woods where no kids could find him, left a note in the door to warn the police about the blood.” 

“I’m sorry,” Steve says. “You do what you can. You can’t save them all.” 

“I know,” Sam says wearily. “I just, I hate it. I hate that people can, do that, to another human being. I can’t,” Sam clenches his fists. 

“I know,” Steve sighs. “I know.” 

They’re sitting like that a few hours later when the door clicks, watching Adventure Time on the TV because why the hell not, Sam needs this. Bucky comes in, drops his shoes on the rack, then stands and watches them for a few minutes. He finally walks over and sits on the floor, at Steve’s feet. There’s plenty of room on the couch. 

“Hey, Buck,” Steve says easily, moving to run a palm over the crown of his head. “There’s a lot of Lady Rainicorn in this one.” 

Bucky hums. “They’re talkin’ about you and me in the gossip rags again.” He lets that sentence hang for a moment. Sometimes it takes him a while to find words. Other times, they flow easily. “Why do you put up with me, anyway?” Bucky asks, going for a joking tone and not quite making it. 

“With my clearly psychotic, unstable, sociopathic shadow of my former friend?” Steve considers. “I mean, yeah, it’s pretty tough. You’re impossible to live with. Maybe it’s that watered-down coffee you make for all of us in the morning, 's why I put up with you." 

Bucky laughs, and Steve leans down to kiss the top of his head, squeezes his shoulder. The coffee debate is a long-standing joke; Steve got choked up and sentimental when Bucky made the coffee the way they used to on rations, by habit. He hasn’t let him make it any other way since. Sam's also pretty sure that this is how Bucky used to respond to Steve asking him the same question; voicing his fears, and making them sound ridiculous. 

“I love you,” Steve says, sincere. “You’re my heart. Every day you were gone, I was bleeding.” He doesn’t fuck around any more; he’s told Sam that the regret of never telling Bucky enough that he loved him, out of pride and insecurity, tormented him for years. He's happy to have the chance to spend the rest of his life making up for it. 

Steve kisses Sam’s shoulder to remind him how much he’s wanted, but he doesn’t have to. Sam just feels happy to be a part of this, to know that something this pure exists, and be warmed by being near it. 

“I can breathe again when I see you,” Steve continues. “You make me so, so happy. You couldn’t be a burden.” 

Bucky sighs and leans his head on Steve’s knee. “You’re a goner,” he informs him. 

“Yeah,” Steve says happily, wrapping an arm around Sam, kicking at Bucky’s knee with his toe. “Lucky me.” 

_Lucky me_ , Sam thinks, and knows he wouldn’t trade this for anything simpler.

**Author's Note:**

> This now has a sequel! you can get to it but clicking on the "Sam POV" series link or going to my page; title is "Under Control"
> 
> my early morning subconscious probably heavily influenced by "Could Never Prepare You." Dira (Dira Sudis) did it better, go check it out.


End file.
